DIY Upholstered Mirror

Last week Sherry over at Young House Love posted about a winter edition Pinterest Challenge. I had a few things I needed motivation to get done, so I jumped on it, which is the whole point of the challenge. To stop just pinning and start doing. Some of the things I needed to do were just convincing my husband to drill some holes into a perfectly painted wall and hang stuff (see my Pin-spired towel rack here =)). Others required more work on my part. Like this upholstered mirror.

I saw this mirror on House of Turquoise a few weeks ago and I LOVED it. But at $395, the price tag was a little out of my budget.

So, I decided to take advantage of my husband’s garage full of power tools and make a cute & colorful mirror myself.

This one is upholstered in leather. I didn’t want to use leather, because I wanted it to be simple & inexpensive. I went to Hancock Fabric and strolled the aisles. I finally decided on this cheerful yellow and gray striped fabric I’ve been admiring for MONTHS. Seriously. Every time I go to the fabric store I’m tempted to buy a few yards if it, and then I remember that we have no yellow anywhere in our home. I figure the yellow would work perfect in our neutral foyer, where the only other color is a dark blue.

We still need a new front door… a blue one =)

This project was SO inexpensive and easy to do. Graham built the frame out of some wood remnants he had from other projects, but any inexpensive wood would work. Since I was going to cover it in fabric, I didn’t need the texture of the wood to be smooth.

First, I cut out a piece of fabric to cover the frame with about two inches of overhang on each side. One yard would be MORE than enough fabric for this project.

Next, I sprayed a thin layer of spray adhesive over the frame and adhered a layer of crib sized loft batting to the wood.

Once the glue was dry and the frame was covered in the batting, I laid the frame (batting side down) on the back side of the frame. Pulling the fabric tight, I then stapled it with a staple gun to the back of the frame.

When this is done on all four sides, cut the inside out, and staple the flaps to the back of the frame. This was harder than I anticipated, and I ended up having to pull it back up and put down little pieces of the fabric in each corner to keep the wood from showing. If anyone else does this and figures out a good way to do the middle, please let me know!

But, problems aside, I love how this turned out.

I love the lines, and I love the little bit of softness that the batting gives it. It looks plush and curvy up against the striped walls. And it’s a far cry from the original $5.99 mirror from Target.